DISsect

split-screen b/w slide installation (2003-2006)

The black & white slide installation, DISsect, continues the two photo series, D&S (2000) and DISclose (2003). The entire photo series spans almost a decade in the life of an American couple, whose private sphere is demonstrated to the outside through patterns of behavior, which can be seen as a result of the gender discourses of the 1990s.

While D&S is primarily concerned with the representation of gender-dissolving identity constructions on a medial surface, DISclose tries to probe the couple’s intimacy in the context of the everyday. The title, D&S, relates to the initials of the first names of the two protagonists, whereas DISclose refers to their last name as a married couple: Dis.

DISsect, however, splits the observations on the two characters, whose lives have taken different directions after an ended marriage. Living in different cities with different partners and friends, the individual fates are transferred into separate stories, which overlap in moments when the former couple meets again. The double slide projection mirrors this phenomenon on a formal level by telling stories about gendered lifestyles in an America that has been shattered by incidents which have changed the attitude towards life in metropolitan environments. The strong b/w contrasts achieved through the analog photographic act become once again important factors in determining the conditions by which current life is structured as well as fragmented.